Incandescence
by SubtleAmberLights
Summary: Quinn changes everything the night before Rachel leaves. Faberry.


A/N: Fluffy nonsense.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

* * *

Somehow in the whirlwind of planning for NYADA, mentally preparing for NYADA, packing for NYADA, Rachel had forgotten to panic about, well, leaving for NYADA.

In less than – she checked the clock – _twelve hours_her fathers would be driving her to New York City. They would check her in, help her unpack, take her out for a celebratory meal at the first vegan restaurant they could find, beam at her and tell her for the millionth time how proud they were of everything she had already accomplished, and then they would leave. After she was a speck in their car mirror, an insignificant blotch amongst the canvass of NYC, she wouldn't see them again until Thanksgiving. Of course they would Skype but she would not physically see them, for the first time in her entire life, for weeks. Months. Instead she would be surrounded by talented strangers with the same dreams she had who had gotten into the same prestigious college with the same determination and self-assuredness she had. In fact, some would have more life experience than the whole of Lima, Ohio.

Suddenly it was difficult to inhale and exhale, the enormity of what would happen in – she checked the clock again – _less_than twelve hours washing over with a force unlike anything she had ever experienced. Downstairs her fathers would be cooking her favourite meal, babbling excitedly about her future, whilst she was upstairs, visibly shaking from head to foot, one hand resting on her bedside table, the other pressed against her rapidly beating heart. Time was trickling away through her tightly closed fist, leaving her light-headed and nauseous. It wasn't like this when she broke up with Finn, the supposed worst thing that had ever happened to her.

The Wicked poster hung above her bed, suddenly too large, and the Funny Girl framed mural stared back from the wall, and there was West Side Story, Grease, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Rent – All of it, everything, suffocating her; she was trapped in its expectations and demands and pressure and -

"Rachel, there's someone here to see you," her dad called, his voice penetrating the haze. It was like she was hearing the noise distantly from underwater and it didn't register for the longest moment that the words meant something. She couldn't move. She didn't want to move.

What if it was Finn trying to talk her back into a relationship? He would look into her eyes with his perfected wounded facade and demand to know why it wasn't about him anymore. Or maybe it was Kurt looking to sob all of his misfortune into her shoulder, making her feel so guilty that she couldn't offer comfort. Or what if it was one last prank played on her by the whole of McKinley, Carrie style?

Irrational, stupid thoughts clouded her mind, overtaking the panic, and she snapped into action. Someone was here to see her. Someone was going to ruin the very last of her when she was at her most vulnerable. In a moment of sheer insanity, she leapt straight for the latch on her window, undoing it with shaking hands, and pushed it open until the cold night air washed across her face and torso. Then she clambered unsteadily, one leg straddling the ledge, over to the small drop of roof beneath, her heartbeat no longer threatening to incapacitate her. For the first time since this all-consuming fear began, she felt calm and collected. For now she could breathe. Rachel Berry was being unfathomably reckless and impulsive and she didn't care. After everything she didn't have the energy to consider Finn or Kurt or everyone else's petty, ridiculous problems. She was leaving and she was terrified and after the whole of high school there was no one who cared.

After inching carefully over to the edge, Rachel let her feet drop into nothingness and calculated how far the drop was. It wasn't a big enough drop, nothing like the fall she was already going through, alone and insignificant and unworthy. The wind slapped the skin of her thighs where her knee socks ended and her skirt began, and her arms erupted in Goosebumps. She was about to drop and – what? – run somewhere, anywhere, until her life made sense again? Hide in the darkness until her dads found her?

That was until the last voice she had ever expected to hear broke (for what felt like the thousandth time) her focus.

"Seriously, Rachel? You couldn't even break your foot from that height."

Quinn Fabray was standing below her, head tilted inquisitively, hand held above her eyes as though to see her better. Even in the moonlight her blonde hair shone angelically, and from where she was perched Rachel could make out the exact colour of her eyes. Or maybe that was because she could write odes to the exact colour of Quinn Fabray's eyes.

"I'm not suicidal," she replied indignantly, rather offended that Quinn thought her stupid enough to attempt to jump from a ledge a mere few metres above ground.

Quinn's lips quirked upwards. "I know you're not," she responded, like it was obvious.

Just her presence was enough to make Rachel feel normal again. To distract herself from the embarrassment of confronting her momentary lapse, she inquired, "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see you before you left tomorrow."

"How did you ..." She hadn't told anyone she was leaving tomorrow, but she figured Finn and Kurt would know because, well, they were supposed to mean something to her. It had never occurred to her that Quinn Fabray would know or care that she was leaving tomorrow, never mind make the trip to see her. She felt warm against the cold night air.

"Rachel," Quinn said gently, quietly, reverently, "What are you doing?"

"Running," Rachel shrugged honestly, peering out into the familiarity of Lima. She crossed her legs and shuffled further back, no longer feeling like running, figuratively or literally. In the darkness she saw Quinn move closer.

"With no shoes?" she questioned in amusement. "I imagine that would be difficult."

"I guess I'll never know," she replied, smiling slightly. Talking with Quinn always meant talking in riddles, in rhetoric and poetry and pictures. "What are you doing here?" she repeated, full of confusion and hope.

"To find out why you were thinking of running."

Rachel rolled her eyes. Quinn would make a brilliant writer some day; everything that came out of her mouth was charming. "Before that," she insisted, squinting into what she assumed was Quinn's face. "Before you knew I was thinking of running."

"Well," she drew out, her tone light and teasing but laced with sincerity, typical Quinn-style. "I wanted to see the girl who was going to make it before she left, so I would know what success looked like. What a star looked like."

"You're a beautiful liar," Rachel told her forlornly, then winced. It wasn't her fault she couldn't take compliments seriously, her entire life had been filled with criticism from her peers.

For the first time Quinn appeared irritated and she folded her arms and looked away, her head moving in the shadows. "Can we stop talking like this, Rachel? I want to have an honest conversation with you. I didn't come here to speak pretty words and promise poetic nothings, okay? I came here to tell you something."

Feeling berated, Rachel motioned to the general vicinity and stated, "I'm not preventing you from speaking."

"Can you come down here first?"

It wasn't worth mentioning that Rachel could climb back through the window and Quinn could meet her there. It was dramatic and urgent and important this way, and Rachel appreciated the moment no matter what Quinn would say. Already the other girl had quelled her fears and salvaged something of the old high school Rachel Berry, the Rachel Berry that didn't run or hide.

So Rachel dropped down from the ledge without hesitation, not caring about the fall or how she landed, and Quinn was there to hold her steady. She walked them over to the edge of the street and stood beneath the streetlamp, two silhouettes on the pavement.

"Hey," she smiled softly, soft blonde hair curling gently around her face.

"Hey," Rachel smiled back, feeling an urge to brush the soft blonde hair from Quinn's face.

Quinn seemed to understand the concept of time trickling through one's enclosed fist because it didn't take long for her to begin the speech that changed everything.

"I came here to tell you that I think you're going to be brilliant at NYADA, that the entire glee club will miss you, regardless of what you think, and that everyone at McKinley, myself included, is jealous of your outrageous talent, beauty and drive. And that one day all of those people will be at your show saying 'I knew that girl in high school' and falling all over you because you've inevitably made it. I needed you to know that you're more than NYADA, really, and that you're definitely more than Lima."

Quinn's hands were tethering Rachel as various words of astonishment and praise and compliments formed incomprehensible sentences in her brain. There was nothing, nothing but Quinn and her reassurances and her heartbreaking smile and meaningful eyes and the fact she was there, being the Quinn that Rachel had always wanted to know, beneath the night skies of Lima.

"I'm going to Yale," Quinn was saying, staring at Rachel with something akin to affection and adoration. "You know that already, I know, but I really want us to keep in touch when you're in New York and I'm in New Haven. I want us to Skype and text and email one another about the classes we love and hate, and tell one another about the people we meet, and complain about how small Lima is in every sense of the word, and tell one another that everything is going to be okay, no matter how many papers or performances or obligations we have lined up. I want to celebrate with you when you get your first role, or get a standing ovation from all of your professors, and I want to share my world with you, whatever that may be."

The silence settled between them like dust, peaceful and unsuspecting for once.

"That sounds like everything I've always wanted," Rachel whispered back, scared to speak too loud, mind reeling from all of the perfect, impossible things she was hearing. Quinn Fabray wanted to know her, wanted to grow with her, wanted to be more than Lima and the people here and actually befriend her, recognising that they knew one another's flaws, knowing that they held one another's past and present in their hands.

It was nothing short of unbelievable.

The smile Quinn was giving her was making her insides clench and she felt something click into place when she -

Soft, tentative lips met hers with the same subtle pressure, and neither of them dared breathe until arms had wrapped around the other, steadying them, reassuring both that this was mutual.

"I've wanted to tell you all along," Quinn murmured sweetly against her mouth. "It was always you."

Rachel, lightheaded and filled with shock, elation and disbelief, met her lips for a kiss that lasted.

They would need to talk more, lots more, discuss everything, but right now Rachel was realising that the reason she had wanted Quinn's friendship all along, even when it made no sense, was because Quinn was unimaginably addictive. And Quinn, under the guise of hating her, was slowly falling in love the whole time. It still didn't make sense; it didn't apply to logic and reason. She and Quinn ... they were so similar and yet so different. They were always in the other's life one way or another, and finally it was in the right way. Perhaps all of their trials and tribulations – their other failed relationships, the lessons they had learned – were preparing them for each other.

Rachel drew back first, tingling and shaking from head to foot, one hand resting on the back of Quinn's neck, the other clasping her hip as Quinn breathed against her neck, shuddering, her own arms interlocked.

When her head cleared enough she managed to check her watch – less than eleven hours until she left – and looked up into Quinn's gaze, knowing in that moment she had never felt surer of anything.


End file.
